The Soldier’s Mirror
by
Jay Zendrowski
Copyright © 2014 by Jay Zendrowski
All Rights Reserved. No part of this work may be reproduced in any fashion without the express, written consent of the copyright holder.
The Soldier’s Mirror is a work of fiction. Any resemblance to persons living or dead is purely coincidental.
Cover design by www.viladesign.net
Special thanks to my proofreaders/editors: my wife Sandra Agnelli, Sue Vivyurka, Ruth Jessen, and Peter Agnelli
For my father, Peter Zendrowski, whose face I now see in the mirror……
CONTENTS
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 1
Michael’s Story
My dad never talked about the war.
When I was a little kid, watching TV shows like “Combat” and war movies with guys like John Wayne, the idea of being in the war just thrilled me. Sure, you’d be in some hairy situations and take some scrapes and flesh wounds every now and then, but those dirty rotten Nazis always got their just desserts in the end.
I remember a dream I had when I was about seven: the Nazis were coming down our street in a bread delivery truck. Living in a small town in the 60’s, you still had bread and milk delivered to your house, as bizarre as that sounds nowadays. Incensed at the blatant audacity of the Germans’ frontal approach, I’d taken my Green Beret-authorized machine gun out on the front porch, at the same time sporting my twin holsters with six-shooters, the cool kind with the pieces of rawhide you tied around your leg to keep your holsters from flopping around. It wasn’t until I turned eight that I realized how really uncool that looked; the single holster slouched low to one side, like the gunslinger in “Shane”. Now that was cool.
Armed to the teeth with the personal arsenal I’d chosen from the Christmas catalogue, I let loose just as the bread truck screeched to a halt and the heavily-armed Nazis spilled forth. With the intoxicating scent of popping caps filling the air, I mowed down the advancing horde, the machine gun doing all that was necessary to subdue the wretched enemy, my trusty six-shooters never having to be drawn from either hip. Not only had I saved our street from the ultimate evil of the Fuhrer, but with the fresh loaf of sliced white bread, Mom had been able to make us peanut butter and jelly sandwiches that day.
This is what war must have been like, taking care of the bad guys and then celebrating with a PB and J sandwich and a glass of Tang, the stuff the astronauts drank. And my own dad had been in the war; the guy who lived in our house and put the food on our table had actually been there, just like John Wayne and those other guys from the movies. But he never talked about it. Even when I pestered him, he’d just kind of shrug his shoulders and say there was nothing to tell. When I asked, he never got angry or rude; that just wasn’t my dad’s style. He’d just stay calm and move onto something else; but I quickly learned that for some reason, this topic was definitely off limits.
My dad, Alex Nuzurka, was the youngest of four children born to Ukrainian immigrants who came over prior to World War l. That last name was quite a handle, one I’ve been stuck with all my life, too. With prejudice against foreigners not uncommon in those days, my dad’s two elder brothers even changed their last name; both of them to Stevens. My grandfather was none too pleased, and understandably so. But my dad hung on to the family moniker, and passed it on to me, and I’ve shoved it along to my own son.
After Dad got back from the war, he met my mom one night in a dancehall, each of them out with their pals, dressed to the nines and enjoying the sounds of the post-war swing era. They took a fancy to each other from across the noisy hall, and ended up dancing the night away. “Your mother looked beautiful in the black dress she was wearing, but it was those red shoes of hers that hooked me,” my dad had told me. Within a year, they were married.
He got a job with the phone company, and his hiring had one little funny story to it. He was told that in order to pass the company physical, he was supposed to weigh at least 140 lbs. I guess they wanted to make sure their lineman didn’t get blown off those telephone poles while they were up doing their repairs, should a high wind come up. So being the slim rake that he’d been all his life, my dad was cracking the scales at an insufficient 138. Prior to his physical, he loaded up with four bananas, hoping that would push him over the magic number. Ends up during the examination, he puked up the bananas right in front of the doctor. Impressed by my dad’s initiative and desire to land the job, the doctor gave him the big thumbs-up.
So for thirty-seven years he toiled for the phone company, raised five kids, paid all his bills on time, and stayed married to the same woman; not a common occurrence nowadays. Retirement had been good to him for about twenty years; he’d played golf, worked in his garden, watched baseball, and made list after list of everything, from which books he’d read—or wanted to read—to which TV shows and movies he had watched. Yeah, if my dad had become a super-hero, he’d have been ‘List-Man’ for sure.
About five years ago, cancer came calling. It literally punched him right in the gut. He’d had a football-sized tumor removed from his stomach that Peyton Manning could have tossed 50 yards downfield. We thought we were going to lose him during that operation, but the tough old bird hung in there. He’d lost a kidney during that procedure too, but surprisingly pulled through and made a good recovery.
Three years ago, my mom was taken from us relatively quickly: congestive heart failure. My dad soldiered on, strong and resolute, like he’d always been. I’d asked him to come and live with my wife and me; we had plenty of room. He’d thought about it but decided to stay home, in the same house my parents had been in for close to fifty years.
Only now, the cancer was back; and this time it didn’t bring its travelling circus tent. No, this time it put down foundations deep in his bladder; it was definitely staying for the rest of the show. He wanted to stay at home, so we visited and helped out as much as we could, but as he deteriorated and things got more difficult for him, we had to call in 24-hour help. The women had been great, taking excellent care of him, doing so much more for him than we ever could. He loved them and they loved him. But it was only a matter of time.
The hose leading to the bag he’d been pissing into for the last few months had become tangled up on his chair and pulled out of his back, and now he was in a bad way. The caregiver called an ambulance and Dad had been admitted to the hospital so they could try to get that damn tube back in and connect it to his one good kidney. But he was fading. We all knew it. And, most of all, he knew it. He’d been saying for quite some time now that he was ready to go. He’d say he was 88, he’d had a good life. He was sick of feeling crummy. He just wanted it to be over.
So I was sitting with him in the hospital, his benefit plan from the phone company had been good enough to provide a private room. My siblings all lived pretty far away and I was the only one still living in the city we’d grown up in. I was the youngest and it had fallen on me to take on a lot of the duties of helping out with my dad’s care: groceries, banking, and everything else. But that was okay, my son and everybody else close by pitched in, and I did what I could. I knew the others would have done the same if our places had been switched.
So there I sat, reading the book I’d brought with me, wondering if I might be there for the long haul. I had my head down reading when he spoke. His words jolted me like an electric shock.
“Son, I think it’s time I told you about a man I killed during the war.”
My eyes flicked up, wondering if he’d been muttering something incoherent in his sleep, but he was looking at me intently, the steady look in his eyes telling me that he knew exactly what he was saying.
“Dad,” I said, as I pulled my chair slightly closer and leaned forward, “Are you okay?”
“I’m lying here with a bladder full of cancer and I haven’t had a decent piss in months. How do you think I feel?” His words were accompanied by a wry smile, but as he shifted slightly on the bed, I could see him wince. He looked over to the rolling tray with his uneaten supper. “Pass me some of that ice-water, will ya?” I grabbed the big Styrofoam container loaded with ice chips and water and held it for him. He took a good long suck on the straw before sitting back and closing his eyes. I set the container down.
“Is everybody else gone?” he asked, opening his eyes.
Since it seemed he was moving on in a new direction of conversation, I figured his statement about killing somebody during the war must have just been some idle babbling.
My wife and son had been by earlier, as had my grown-up niece and nephew. Visitors tired him out, but everybody knew he was at the end of the road, and they’d wanted to see him.
“Yeah, Dad, they’ve all gone home.”
“Is Justin going to come tomorrow?” he asked.
During Dad’s illness, my son had helped with his care and handled a lot of his daily chores for him. Since he’d been in the hospital, my son had come every day. “I’m sure he will,” I said.
“Is he still going to go to Africa?”
My son was reaching the end of his post-secondary education and had signed up with a relief agency to go and help build some schools in Africa for a year before looking for a permanent job. I wasn’t too keen on the idea, but I admired him for his choice. “Yes, I’m pretty sure he’s going to go. He’ll go once school’s done.”
“You tell him to be careful. I read the papers, you know. There’s a lot of corrupt people over there.”
“Okay, Dad. I’ll tell him.”
We sat quietly for a couple of minutes before he spoke again. “What about you, Michael, don’t you have to work tomorrow?”
I paused, “Yeah, but don’t worry about it, I’ll be fine. My boss is a good guy. And the nurses don’t mind me being here, probably ‘cause I can help them keep an eye on you. Make sure you don’t try and bust out of this joint.”
He smiled at that, and it made me feel happy and sad at the same time. “If they’re letting you stay, that probably means that pretty cancer doctor is right. I’m about done, right?”
I was almost on the point of making some lame-ass comment, but he deserved the truth, and I think the doctor had probably been straight with him earlier anyway. “Yes, that’s right.”
“Yeah….yeah, I know. She told me probably just another day or two.” I simply nodded. He fixed his gaze on me as I sat there, feeling dreadfully uncomfortable all of a sudden. “Well, if you’re gonna stay, sit back and relax.”
I did as he asked, shifting around until I could get as comfortable as possible in one of those ridiculous hospital room guest chairs.
“Remember when you were a little kid and always asking me about what it was like to be in the war?” He gave a little chuckle, memories of those days coming back to him too. “You were full of beans in those days, always playing with those pop-guns of yours, or making forts with your little army men. And yeah, you were full of questions too, that’s for sure. Well, there’s something I need to tell you. It’s something I probably should have told all of you long ago.”